There is adequate land area to completely recycle all of the animal manures produced. However, concentration of large volumes of manure from modern livestock production facilities, weather conditions, cropping systems and the need for efficient use of labor and other resources make it advisable for the agricultural manager to have a planned manure handling and storage system.
Animal wastes should not be applied to farm land under adverse soil or weather conditions except when planned methods will insure that they will remain on the land. The wastes should be stored in designed structures until they can be incorporated into the soil. The manure handling system should be designed to meet legal and market requirements, save the maximum amount of fertility in the manure, utilize labor efficiently, keep production costs down, and avoid objectional side effects including the control of flies, insuring safe water supplies and protecting products such as milk from absorbing manure odors.
Run-off control is a basic part of a manure handling system. It is an acute problem where livestock yard run-off could pollute streams, lakes or ground water. Structures, as diversions and storage or detention ponds, have been used to check run-off problems present in manure handling systems. It is recommended that a minimum of 150-180 days storage capacity in detention ponds is convenient for saving maximum fertility and preventing water pollution.
Schmitzer in U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,276 and Nesseth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,687,313 disclose manure handling apparatuses having pumps for moving manure through pipes leading to the bottom of a storage pond. This type of manure handling system is an effective means of handling manure, including liquid manure, with a minimum of labor and maximum of pollution control.
Materials, as concrete, clay and manure, have been conveyed through passages with pumps having flow-through pistons. Gates or valve structures associated with the pistons allow movement of the material through the piston in one direction and block the movement of material in the opposite direction whereby upon reciprocal movement of the piston the material is forced to move in one direction through the passage. Albricht et al in U.S. Pat. No. 1,370,506 disclose a pump having a single gate swingable about a generally horizontal axis for controlling the flow of material through a hollow piston. A similar structure is shown by Nesseth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,687,313. These pistons require relatively long strokes to close the gates and pump material. A plurality of gates pivotally mounted on a movable piston to control the flow of fluid through the piston are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 762,230; 1,248,118; and 2,238,944.